Invisible Ink
by Agni xx
Summary: Three years Peter Burke devoted his life to studying Neal’s. He knew Caffrey’s haunts and Caffrey’s favorites and he knew everything, even his shoe size, but he never understood the cards. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own none of these characters. Anything recognizable belongs to USA and Jeff Eastin.

* * *

Three Years. One hundred and fifty six weeks. One thousand and ninety five days.

Three years Peter Burke spent chasing after con artist Neal Caffery, and three years con artist Neal Caffery spent deftly avoiding capture.

Three years Peter Burke devoted his life to studying Neal's. He knew Caffery's haunts and Caffery's favorites and he knew everything, even his shoe size, but he never understood the cards. Cards for his birthday, cards for Christmas -- even cards for New Years! Who the hell sent out cards for New Years?

When the first card came Peter was confused, frustrated and angry with Neal for baiting him, because the message on his card was a very subtle "Good luck next time," and it was signed with love. Peter didn't even glance at the front of the card, just tossed it carelessly back into the envelope and locked it away in his desk drawer and forgot to tell another soul about it.

The second card came during the mad rush of the holiday season and Peter was too distracted by other things to indulge in Caffery's games. The card remained unopened on his desk well past New Years.

When New Years came and went, Peter returned to work and found another pristine white envelope sitting on his desk with Caffery's neat, elegant script denoting his name. Refreshed by the promise of a new year he opened the envelope and found only a blank card. Puzzled and feeling the creeping onset of frustration that showed up whenever Caffery was involved, he shoved the blank card in his desk with the others and forgot about it until his birthday rolled around again.

The fourth card left Peter Burke with little patience for pranks but he found once he'd opened it, an actual card. It was a scenic view of the eastern city skyline backlit by a fiery sunset, a cheap and tacky tourist gift anyone could pick up in any corner store in the city. But then Peter noticed the paper the card was printed on was artist quality and the smell of recently dried ink drew his attention to the smidge of silver that he had mistaken for stars in the sky. If he tilted his head sideways and squinted it almost certainly looked like...

If Caffery had time to be painting him pictures, he had too much time to spare. He flipped the card open irritability to find a hand-written:

_"**Happy birthday. **_

**_N.C."_ **

He placed the card gently in his desk and turned his mind to the paperwork that demanded his attention.

The second Christmas card was less sentimental. It was a cheap fifty cent card with a mass-produced cartoon picture of Santa and his reindeer dashing through the snow. Caffery hadn't bothered signing it.

When New Years came around again and Peter hit the two years, one hundred and four weeks, seven hundred and thirty days mark he found another card sitting where he had come to expect it as he walked into the office that morning. He sat down with his morning cup of coffee and opened the card before getting to work. It was another plain white card, with only two words written in Caffery's elegant script inside: "Lemon juice".

Peter scowled at the words and tossed the card aside, receiving a paper cut for his troubles. He was in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

The next day however he came into work with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step, eager to get to his desk and solve the mystery that had been bothering him since the day before.

He sat down and extracted the card from his desk drawer before reaching down into a brown paper bag he had set beside his chair on the floor and withdrawing a tiny bottle of lemon juice. He felt ridiculous and glanced around more than once to make sure nobody was watching him in case he was making a fool of himself. He pulled an eyedropper from the bag as well and dipped it quickly into the bottle before he could lose his nerve.

Carefully he held the dropper with a shaking hand over the blank space of the card that surrounded Caffery's hint and pinched the bulb at the end until a drop of lemon juice beaded and fell onto the page with a wet plash.

Peter watched the paper suck in the sudden moisture and waited.

Nothing happened.

Feeling a twinge of irritation at both Caffery and himself for going along with it, he opted to try one more time. He extracted more lemon juice from the bottle and repeated the procedure. Despite his claim he tired again and again and soon found the card in front of him soaked thoroughly, still blank except for the wet black smudges where the ink had once been; his nose was stinging from the sharp scent of lemons and the cut on his finger burned where the juice had leaked in. He glared sharply at the wet mess on his desk and dropped the dropper into the bottle with a sigh of resignation.

When he pulled open his desk drawer in hopes of finding tissues to mop up the mess, he spotted the other cards Caffery had sent him over the years and his mind whirred and clicked until the light dinged cheerfully above his head.

Of course! He felt like smacking his forehead but decided firmly that he had looked foolish enough for one day. This was _Caffery_ he was talking about. The message on the card was a hint. Caffery had written whatever he had written in invisible ink. The easiest way to make invisible ink was by using lemon juice. It was a kid's trick and Peter felt like a fool for misunderstanding.

Agitated and with the cut on his finger still burning, Peter threw the lemon juice and the bag in the trash, along with the eyedropper and a wad of napkins he had saved from lunch one day that were now thoroughly soaked with half the contents of a three dollar bottle of lemon juice. Whatever the message had been, it was now meaningless.

He kept the card.

--

The next time he found a card at his desk – his third birthday card if he was counting, which he was but it was purely evidential, despite the fact that he had yet to mention the cards in his file on Caffery; he was no longer surprised to expect it there. The third birthday card was sitting on his desk, beckoning him to open it, but as he sat down to do just that Jones rushed in with a case file in his hand and the card had to wait.

The card waited patiently on his desk until the end of a long day and Peter snatched it on his way out the door as an afterthought. On impulse he opened the drawer and grabbed the rest of the cards as well.

He sat down at the kitchen table after a lovely birthday dinner and spread all seven cards out in front of him and was surprised to find the prickle of irritation barely touched him as he looked at them all – gifts from a convict! Instead he found his lips curving gently in a smile and he shook his head at the conman's antics as though he were right there in front of him.

Elizabeth's arms wound around his waist and she put her chin on his shoulder, grin alight with mischief.

"Should I be worried?" she asked with a smile. "Those are from Neal Caffery, I'd assume."

"How'd you know?" he asked in surprise, turning his head to glance at her. She just smiled and her eyes twinkled in secret delight.

"What else would you bring home from work with you?"

Peter grimaced. "I bring other work home," he protested.

Elizabeth just smiled and tugged on him gently. "Are you coming to bed soon?"

He gave her tired smile and admitted, "I'm trying to figure this out."

"Of course," she said but she didn't sound angry. Her eyes lit up with curiosity and she took a seat beside her husband, glancing at the seven cards on the table top in front of them. "Anything I can help with?"

He was about to tell her that she could go to bed and get some rest instead of wasting her time solving this ridiculous mystery with him but he enjoyed Elizabeth's help and she truly was a brilliant woman. If anyone could crack the mystery, it would be her.

She handed him the unopened envelope from this morning. "You haven't opened this one yet."

He gave his wife a strange look. "Why are you encouraging this?"

"I think it's cute."

Peter rolled his eyes but did as his wife told him and opened the card. He pulled the thin cardboard sheet from its envelope and stared with bemusement at the ridiculous cartoon on the front of it. He felt his lips twitch but managed to fight back a smile. Road Runner and Willy E. Coyote stared back at him from their paper prison. He couldn't help but find the card oddly...

"Appropriate," he muttered and couldn't help but smile when he found the word scrawled in Caffery's neat hand in the now-familiar black ink in the dead center of the card's otherwise empty white interior.

Elizabeth plucked the card from her husband's hands and ran her hands over the cartoon cover with gentle amusement in her eyes. "He seems very intuitive," she said with mirth. "Though you're much more handsome than Will E. Coyote."

Peter gave his wife a gracious smile and snatched the card he had ruined with lemon juice in January and stared at it as though it would reveal its secrets to him if he stared hard enough. No dice.

A muffled peal of laughter sounded from beside him and he looked over to see Elizabeth covering her mouth with her hand, her sides shaking with barely repressed laughter.

"Oh darling, what did the card ever do to you?" she asked fondly, placing a hand on his arm and leaning over to get a better look at the crinkled mess. The scent of lemon juice was still strong. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose.

"Is that...lemon juice?" she asked in surprise. "What did you do, spill the whole bottle on it? Why?"

Peter flushed and avoided her eyes and mumbled something incomprehensible. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "What was that?"

"Caffery wrote 'lemon juice' on the card. I don't know what I was thinking but--" he broke off as his wife burst out into amused laughter once again, this time making no effort to hold it in.

"Oh, honey." She touched the ruined paper carefully as though it might disintegrate under her fingers if she pressed too hard. Her eyes sparkled suddenly. "I bet it was--"

"Invisible ink," Peter mumbled. "Yeah. By the time I realized I had already wasted half the bottle on the letter. And lemon juice isn't cheap, you know."

"Poor baby," Elizabeth cooed, kissing her husband's cheek. "So what's the mystery you needed help solving?"

Peter shuffled through the cards again after putting the damaged one aside and came up with the blank card from the first New Year's, the third card Caffery had sent him. He slid the card in front of her and she picked it up to examine the front, back and inside covers, all of which held nothing but blank, off-white space. Elizabeth studied the card with careful eyes and then a slow smile pulled at her lips.

She got up from the table and headed into the den, with Peter staring after her in confusion. Peter heard her fumbling around in the dark for a moment and then with the click of a switch, the lamplight on the side table clicked on. Peter rose from his seat and followed his wife into the den to find her kneeling on the couch and holding the blank card carefully under the lamplight, just beneath the bulb.

After a moment she beckoned him over with a smile and a crook of her fingers. "Come see," she said excitedly.

Peter bent over the side table with her, watching with a jolt of shock as words slowly began to burn themselves into what had previously only been blank paper. He recognized Neal's handwriting scorched into the card and wondered why he hadn't thought of this sooner.

"Now how'd you do that?" he said, watching his wife with a smile. She grinned wickedly up at him.

"Magic," she said.

They both turned their attention back to the card at the same time, curious to reveal the mystery of what Caffery had so painstakingly written in invisible ink.

"Hmm," Elizabeth said and Peter glanced at her before looking at the page. The now-visible letters formed words. Like Caffery's other cards the message was short and to the point.

**_Central Park, 1:00. _**

**_N.C._ **

"Do you think he wants you to go there?" Elizabeth asked.

Peter shook his head. "I wouldn't doubt it, with him. But El, this card was from last New Year's Eve, the message is surely meaningless now."

Elizabeth just smiled and wound her arms around her husband in a fond embrace. She settled her chin on his shoulder and closed her eyes thoughtfully. "Who knows," she said. "Maybe Neal will surprise you."

Peter shook his head again but he had already agreed silently that he would go to the park tomorrow, just in case. If this card would lead him to Caffery, he'd take the chance. And if nothing else, at least he would get a break from the office. Hughes had been demanding about paper work lately.

--

He heads to Central Park during his lunch break and makes it there five minutes to one and spends those five minutes getting to the fountain in the center of the park because he figures if Caffery would lead him to the park, then he meant to find him there. He waits by the fountain for a half an hour but sees no sign of Caffery and the prickle of irritation gradually starts to return.

As he turns to leave, a man approaches him and holds out a hand. "Sir, I was asked to give this to you."

Peter looks down at what the man holds out to him and is shocked and yet somehow unsurprised to find a thin white envelope in his hand. He tears it open to find a plain piece of paper with a short message.

**_You showed. I'm not surprised. Sorry I couldn't make it. Had to run. _**

**_N.C. _**

**_P.s. Tell Elizabeth I said hi._**

It's the most he's ever written to him before and Peter can't help but smile. He frowns at the mention of his wife and the thought of Caffery anywhere near her but he knows Neal and he knows the message isn't a threat.

He replaces the note and puts the envelope in his suit pocket and knows, if nothing else, El will enjoy this.

--

He hits the three year, one hundred and fifty six weeks, one thousand and ninety five days mark in February. There is another envelope waiting on his desk when he arrives at work. He shakes his head but he's smiling and picks the envelope up before settling in his chair.

There's a tiny lump in the envelope and he frowns in confusion, wondering what Caffery is up to this time. He dumps the contents of the envelope out in his palm and finds a tiny plastic figurine of the road runner staring mockingly back at him.

It's the only thing in the envelope. He feels his lips twitch but fights back a smile and shakes his head. _Caffery._

_--  
_

Three weeks later (three years, one hundred and fifty nine weeks, one thousand one hundred and sixteen days), he finally catches a break. He finds Neal downtown on the East side in an empty lot and for once he looks surprised to see him, as though he was expecting someone else.

"Looks like the Coyote finally caught a break," he says and Caffery smiles amiably at him as his wrists are cuffed and Peter reads him his rights.

"So you _did_ open the cards," he says with pleasure and Caffery's cheerfulness is contagious.

"Get in the car, Caffery," he says, but there's an amused smile on his face and a respectful one on Caffery's that he knows means: _it was fun while it lasted._

_fin.

* * *

_**A/N: Hey guys! This is my first foray into White Collar fanfiction, though I've been watching the show since the beginning and love every second of it. White Collar is actually the first tv series I've ever started watching from the very beginning and that makes it special in my mind. I'll just have to kill the wait until January with fanfics and the episodes offered on my on demand channel. **

**I don't know what happened with this, as originally it was only supposed to be a short drabble (it was barely three pages written out) but when I typed it up it demanded to be longer, so we got this. I hope you like it anyway and reviews are precious, of course! Also, don't mind the random switch from past to present tense at the end, I felt like the end bit worked better that way but that might only be me, so I'm sorry if I've caused any confusion. **

**I'm working on a few multi-chaptered White Collar fics right now but if anything they won't be up for a while. I hope this helps numb the pain of waiting until January, at least a little bit. **

**Agni**


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